Easter Eggs, References, And Gags That Return In Futurama Season 11

Today, "Futurama" is one of the longest-running animated series ever made — as long as you ignore all those years it was canceled and off the air, that is. First airing all the way back in the 20th century in 1999, it's spent 15 of the last 24 years not airing new episodes. However, the show has returned once again in 2023, this time on Hulu. Following a brief standoff with executives, the entire voice cast has returned to reprise their roles, with the Planet Express crew back in action once more for the first time since 2013.

In the show's revival, Hulu has resurrected one of the most beloved animated series of all time, and with it, a number of recurring gags, Easter eggs, and references to all-time favorite "Futurama" jokes. With all the new episodes, there are plenty of opportunities for deep cuts, meta jokes, and callbacks to some of the best "Futurama" episodes. So get ready for a trip through the InfoSphere, because we've found the best ones in "Futurama" Season 11.

One of the things that has always made "Futurama" co-creator Matt Groening so subversive is his willingness to make fun of the very networks that give him work. Between "The Simpsons" and "Futurama," he's mocked his own networks and the people who sign his paychecks on a nearly weekly basis for decades, and that habit hasn't stopped. Now airing on Hulu, "Futurama" wastes no time in bringing back its recurring gag of mocking the powers that be.

The very premise of "The Impossible Stream" allows for endless jokes at the expense of not just Hulu, but the idea of streaming television in general. From the sign outside the "Fulu" building taking a jab at ever-increasing subscription prices to the cancelation of popular shows that everyone loves, there's no shortage of jokes at the expense of the very network that airs the series. This once again mimics the Season 7 premiere "Rebirth," which had a lot of fun mocking Fox for canceling the show.

It doesn't end there, though, because "Futurama" also has a tradition of poking fun at itself. In "The Impossible Stream," it does so again, with fourth-wall-breaking gags about shows that have been canceled on multiple occasions.

A long-running recurring joke in "Futurama" involves TV in the 31st century, and how it's little more than a way of brainwashing the masses. It's an old crank conspiracy theory in the real world, too, but "Futurama" takes it to literal levels in the Season 5 episode "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV" from 2003, where one of the hottest shows is "Everybody Loves Hypnotoad." The series stars an alien toad with pulsating eyes who's able to hypnotize even the most strong-willed humans and robots. The character's first appearance, though, came in "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid," where he's not even on TV, but a contestant in a pet show (à la the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show), using his hypnotic powers to win the top prize.

In "The Impossible Stream," we see that "Everybody Loves Hynotoad" is still on the air, though his powers don't seem to be hypnotizing anyone anymore. Of course, eagle-eyed viewers with a pause button will also spot Hypnotoad among the TV shows that Bender scrolls through on a TV guide channel listing. On an apparent sports channel is a match titled "TCU Hypnotoads vs. Georgia Bulldogs." Though the Bulldogs — a real college team out of the University of Georgia — are pretty tough, we don't imagine they're much of a match for the TCU Hypnotoads (a play on the TCU Horned Frogs, a real-life club of Texas Christian University).

"The Impossible Stream" breaks the fourth wall on a number of occasions, including with a fake-out fade-out ending. But it also features a fake commercial break, because, with its move to Hulu, it's the first time new episodes are airing without ads (assuming you have the service's ad-free subscription tier, of course). At around the halfway mark of the episode, we get a commercial for an in-universe product that fans know well — the soda pop Slurm, this time in a zero-calorie formula. And the brief ad includes a visit from an old friend.

As the can of Slurm Zero bursts onto the screen, it's followed by the brand's spokesman, Slurms MacKenzie. His first appearance came in the episode "Fry and the Slurm Factory," where Fry wins a chance to party with the soda's mascot. At the end of that episode, it's revealed that MacKenzie hates his job and is tired of partying constantly to promote the drink, and he sacrifices his life to allow Fry and Leela to escape the factory. 

While Slurms' resurrection isn't explained in "The Impossible Stream," it's possible the company is using A.I. to bring him back from the dead to promote their product. Though if that's the case, we'd be forced to wonder why they're recreating him in a sickly, coughing form.

Not every Easter egg is a reference or homage to an old episode of "Futurama," or even another series from co-creator Matt Groening. One that fans may have missed in "The Impossible Stream" comes when Leela sets out to produce new episodes of the robot soap opera "All My Circuits," trying to keep Fry alive after his life is put in jeopardy by his endless TV binge. 

Since she needs the services of robot actor Calculon, the action shifts down to Robot Hell, where he'd been sent at the end of the Season 10 episode "Calculon 2.0." And our first glimpse of the computer netherworld is the throne of the Robot Devil, who cradles an iconic horror movie prop. Some audiences less familiar with classic horror movies of the 1980s might confuse it with a robot version of a Rubik's Cube, but the little box held by the Robot Devil is actually a puzzle box called the Lament Configuration, which is from the "Hellraiser" movies. In those films, solving the puzzle summons the demonic Cenobites, leading the solver to an eternity of torture not unlike what we see Calculon enduring.

The Hulu "Futurama" revival decides to make use of the show's long layover to pick up a few dangling plot threads from earlier in its run. The second episode, "Children of a Lesser Bog," finally answers the question of what happened to Amy and Kiff's offspring in the episode "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch" from back in Season 5. But while the new story does a good job of getting viewers up to speed and reminding them of that older episode, what viewers may not realize right off the bat is how perfectly timed the episode really is.

That's because when "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch" was first aired, the newly married Kif announced that their spawn would re-emerge from the bog in 20 years. And sure enough, that episode aired in 2003, exactly 20 years before "Children of a Lesser Bog." Even as Amy stated back then, she is indeed ready to be a parent after two decades (despite not having aged a day).

"Futurama" has its fair share of zany recurring side characters, and one of the wildest is Petunia, the cigarette-chomping gambler from across the Hudson River. She first shows up in the Valentine's Day episode "Put Your Head on My Shoulders" from 2000, when Bender recruits bus passengers from New Jersey to serve as potential partners for his holiday dating service. She reappears many more times throughout the series, but in "Children of a Lesser Bog," she namedrops her hometown, which we learned in that first installment.

In that episode, she mentions having to board a bus back to Nutley, New Jersey, a real-life town across the river from New York City. It's a little burg where very little happens, and nobody knows much about it, which makes it the perfect reference for "Futurama." Petunia shows up here after getting a gig babysitting Amy's kids, only to realize she's on the wrong planet. She then notes she'll have to wait for the "next generation ship to Nutley."

Part of "Children of a Lesser Bog" involves newly-minted father Kif leaving Amy alone with the kids to accompany Zapp Brannigan on a mission to a remote space outpost. There they discover an expedition led by a single biologist studying the moon's bears. Though he goes unnamed, this is the same character from the 2003 episode "Three Hundred Big Boys." We know this because, in this episode, he even makes mention of the time he was a Whale Biologist, studying a species he absolutely hated.

In his expedition, the Bear Biologist studies tardigrades, a reference to the colloquial nickname of the real microscopic creatures, "water bears." Of course, in this episode, they're the size of actual bears and capable of mauling humans. Considering the show's penchant for mocking (and paying homage to) the "Star Trek" franchise, this could very well be a tribute to "Star Trek: Discovery." In that series, a giant, bear-sized tardigrade is used to help power an experimental starship engine, before getting loose and murdering members of the crew. 

"Futurama" isn't just a show that pokes fun at sci-fi. It's also famous for its smart humor that requires some background knowledge to get a laugh. The drawback, though, is that sometimes that means there are jokes that will go right over the heads of the audience, who might scratch their heads — or worse, never even realize it's a joke. Such may be the case with a gag in "How The West Was 1010001," when Fry takes a peak inside one of the Borax Kid's pulpy adventure books, "The Borax Kid and the Outlaws of Thermodynamics." In it, the gun-slinging rock man tracks down a villain known as the Maxwell Demon.

In addition to some obvious jokes that see the demon stealing balls labeled "Au" (which is gold on the periodic table) and shooting bullets labeled "Pb" (lead), the villain himself is actually a reference to a real-life scientific thought experiment. Known as "Maxwell's demon," it was proposed by James Clerk Maxwell, a 19th-century physicist. In the hypothetical scenario, he posited a powerful entity (or "demon") with the ability to control subatomic particles of gas within separate chambers, and who could separate fast-moving particles from slow-moving ones through a series of doors. Doing so would decrease the total entropy within the closed system, in apparent violation of the second law of thermodynamics.

"How The West Was 1010001" brings back the Borax Kid, who was seen in just a few older installments, but it also features one of the longest-tenured recurring robot characters, Roberto. First seen in the Season 2 episode "Mother's Day," Roberto is a deranged, criminal robot with serious homicidal tendencies. In the episode "Insane in the Mainframe," Bender becomes an unwitting accomplice in Roberto's spree of bank robberies, where he uses a knife, not a gun, as his weapon of choice. 

Roberto's penchant for stabbing is referenced in "How The West Was 1010001," when he arrives in the saloon brandishing a revolver. Bender even points out how unusual it is to see his old pal Roberto using a gun instead of a knife, but that's when we see that rather than being loaded with bullets, the pistol is packed with six sharp and deadly knives. Roberto claims that "out here in the West" he needs a weapon that's "shooter." Later on, we also see him playing the traditional pinfinger game with the gun, shooting knives onto the table between his robotic fingers, a move thought to have its origins in the old West, where it's said to have been played by real cowboys, outlaws, and gamblers.

When "Futurama" began its run, Nibbler was little more than an odd alien pet, one of many offbeat elements to signify that we were, in fact, a thousand years in the future. All that changed in the aforementioned "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid." In this episode, we learn that he's an ancient alien being who has been posing as a pet to get close to Fry, whose unique nature allowed him to resist the powers of the Brain Spawn. He became a walking, talking, powerful alien ally of the Planet Express Crew. But when that episode ended, he wiped everyone's memory.

In "The Why of Fry," Nibbler once again reveals he can talk to Fry, who is shocked, having no memory of their previous adventure. Once again, Nibbler wipes his memory, and the process repeats itself in "Bender's Big Score," where everyone is shocked to learn that Nibbler can talk. This time, he didn't wipe their memories, and so in "Parasites Regained," when Nibbler first speaks, Leela's surprise that he can talk is a humorous nod to all those previous episodes. It's a running joke about how he kept wiping their memories, and their repeated surprise whenever he'd reveal he was more than just a diaper-wearing house pet.

"Parasites Regained" contains a plot hole that comes complete with a double Easter egg. Professor Farnsworth needs to shrink the Planet Express crew to battle the worms that have infested Nibbler through his litter box. In the episode "Parasites Lost" he created miniature robotic duplicates to go into Fry's body, but this time, he shrinks down the crew for real, using a device we've seen before: An enlarging ray, with some adjustments that reverse its biggify-ing effect. Where we've seen the enlarging ray itself, though, is where things get interesting.

The enlarging ray made its first appearance in the episode "Anthology of Interest," an episode that told three imaginary stories. They're concocted using Farnsworth's "What-If Machine," which responds to questions posed by the crew, including one asked by Bender about what it would be like if he was 100 feet tall. In that tale, Farnsworth uses the enlarging ray to super-size Bender, who wreaks havoc on the city in a parody of the movie "The Iron Giant."

But if the enlarging ray was only in an imaginary episode, how did it show up here? Well, that's where the double Easter egg comes in, because when Farnsworth asks, "Remember my enlarging ray?" the crew responds with an emphatic "no." This is a clear nod to the fact that the ray was only ever part of an imaginary adventure.

If you haven't figured it out by now, "Parasites Regained" is a quasi-sequel to 2001's "Parasites Lost." That episode, which originally aired more than two decades ago, is a send-up of the classic novel "Flowers for Algernon." It sees Fry inexplicably become smarter and more sensitive, and thus more attractive to Leela. The reason for the change is traced to tiny parasites that have begun living in his brain, and in "Parasites Regained," that same army of parasites comes back. It's not just the same species, but apparently the exact same ones, including their sword-wielding, crown-wearing king.

Though it's not said specifically, "Parasites Regained" seems to imply that after the worms left Fry's body at the end of the "Parasites Lost," they moved over to infest Nibbler and his litter box. It turns out that the parasites aren't making Nibbler any smarter because they too are infested with their own parasitic creatures. As a result, their intelligence-boosting powers are actually having the reverse effect. Rather than battle the worm-like parasites this time around, Fry and the Planet Express crew must eliminate the even tinier parasites, which appear as crab-like critters, much to Zoidberg's dismay.

When "Futurama" Season 11 was announced, some wondered if the show would break up Fry and Leela, who finally got together officially at the end of the previous season. However, in the Season 11 episode "Related to Items You've Viewed," their relationship actually takes a big step forward, with Fry and Leela moving in together. Specifically, Leela comes to live in Robot Arms, in the apartment Fry and Bender share. Before she moves in, though, the slovenly pair clean the place up, and that's when we get a cameo from an old robot friend.

His name is Tin Tim, a send-up of Tiny Tim from "A Christmas Carol." We first met him in the 1999 episode "Xmas Story" as a down-on-his-luck orphaned robot who is nevertheless always optimistic no matter how bad things get. He played a key role in several later episodes, including one where he helps Bender's activities with the Robot Mafia. Here we learn that he actually lives under the floorboards of Bender and Fry's apartment (not so surprising since most robots live in tiny, confined spaces in this universe). He also seems thrilled to have all the dust and dirt from their living room swept into his little hidey-hole, describing it as being like the snow in London.

"Related to Items You've Viewed" is an episode all about the corporate villain Mom. Founder of Mom's Friendly Robot Company, Mom operates one of the most powerful corporations in the world of "Futurama." In this episode, we learn that she's started a new division called Momazon, hence the episode's title — the phrase is used by online giant Amazon to help customers locate new items. Like its real-world counterpart, Momazon is an online "everything" store that can ship things faster than seemingly possible, threatening to shut down the Planet Express delivery business for good.

This isn't actually the first time that "Futurama" has taken a jab at Amazon. While the joke here is that the business is so big and successful that it ultimately consumes the universe, the gag was quite the opposite last time around. In an ironic twist, the first joke at Amazon's expense came in the episode "Three Hundred Big Boys," in which the government gives everyone a $300 check. Hermes' son Dwight decides to use his payment to make a stock market investment, and his choice is Amazon.com. When this episode aired in 2003, Amazon wasn't the powerhouse it is today, so Hermes reacts to this decision by praising his son for embracing a risky investment.

"Related to Items You've Viewed" doesn't just talk about Mom's new online store, it goes inside it, too. Much like her larger business of MomCorp, Mom uses robot laborers as her work force, and Bender decides to defect from Planet Express to take a full time job in a Momazon warehouse. When we get a glimpse inside the warehouse we see that the staff is a who's who of recurring robot characters from "Futurama" history.

Bender's former love Crushinator is there, and so is Hedonism Bot, the Roman-reclining robot with a highfalutin attitude, shown here packing boxes for Momazon. There's also Refreshment Bot, a robot who resembles a pimply-faced teen, last seen in "The Silence of the Clamps." And it's not just robots, either. In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo, we also see Bongo, the one-eared rabbit hero of "Futurama" creator Matt Groening's 1980s comic strip "Life in Hell." This isn't his first "Futurama" cameo: Bongo's background appearances have become something of an ongoing joke in the show.

There are lots of catchphrases in "Futurama," from Professor Farnsworth's "Good news, everyone!" to Morbo's "I will destroy you!" But if the show has a king of catchphrases it has to be Bender, who has distinguished himself with such classics as "Bite my shiny metal a**!" The episode "Related to Items You've Viewed" brings back another classic Bender catchphrase, and it's one we haven't heard in a while: "We're doomed!"

Bender is actually more known for saying "We're boned," but on a couple of memorable occasions, he has substituted in "doomed." The first time was actually in response to the rest of the Planet Express crew, who each said that they were doomed before Bender followed with a long, bellowed version of the phrase. That's in the episode "The Problem with Popplers," when Lrrr (of the planet Omicron Persei 8) arrives with an invading army to destroy mankind.

Bender repeated the catchphrase again years later in "The Farnsworth Parabox," but this time, he wasn't alone. On this occasion, he's joined by a golden version of himself from a parallel reality. They shout "We're doomed" when they realize that Hermes may be about to throw their universe into the sun.

Professor Farnsworth has come up with countless inventions over the years, but few are quite as memorable as the Smell-O-Scope. It was used for the first time in "A Big Piece of Garbage" as a way of locating an asteroid-sized garbage ball that's headed to Earth, threatening to destroy all of mankind with it. That isn't the only time it's turned up, though. The Smell-O-Scope is used in "A Clone of My Own" to locate the professor himself when he gets taken away to the Near Death Star, and it's also used in "Time Keeps on Slippin" to track down supposed "time leaks" in a distant nebula.

Prior to Season 11, the Smell-O-Scope was last seen in "The Beast with a Billion Backs" (not counting the miniature version that popped up in "The Butterjunk Effect"). In "Related to Items You've Viewed," Farnsworth digs out the full-sized Smell-O-Scope to track the expansion of the Momazon warehouse. He learns from its smells that it has actually grown to encompass the entire universe. It's a device that's proved very handy at several points in the series, and it's vital once again here.

The second "Futurama" Christmas episode, "A Tale of Two Santas," aired in 2001, and it saw the first appearance of another religious robot: the Kwanzaa Bot. In that episode, he was voiced by rapper Coolio, and he returned nearly a decade later to voice the character again in the 2010 episode "The Futurama Holiday Spectacular." He's popped up in a few other places, mostly in background cameos with no dialogue, but now, in "I Know What You Did Next Xmas," he's back for a bigger role.

For the third time, it's Coolio providing the voice for Kwanzaa Bot, which is a special treat for fans of the rapper, and an unintentionally poignant moment for the series. It was almost a full year before the episode aired when, in September 2022, Coolio passed away, but it seems he was able to record the role before his death. In what will be the final time he plays the role, Coolio brings Kwanzaa Bot to life once more, appearing as part of a Christmas special Fry, Amy, Kif, and their kids are watching on TV. 

But the real treat comes at the end of the episode when during the credits, Coolio raps a "Futurama" version of the "12 Days of Christmas" as Kwanzaa Bot. The episode closes out with a dedication to Coolio's memory, with a title card over an image of his character floating off into the sunset in a boat above the Earth. 

In "I Know What You Did Next Xmas," Professor Farnsworth decides he's finally had enough of Evil Robot Santa and sets out to end his reign of terror forever. To do it, he plans to go back in time to when Robot Santa first became evil and stop it from ever happening. And that means digging out his old Forwards Time Machine, which was first seen in the episode "The Late Philip J. Fry." That episode saw Farnsworth invent the machine that could only go forward in time, and get helplessly stuck when he accidentally travels too far into the future.

This time, though, Farnsworth has fixed the time machine to allow it to go backward in time too. Yet, he still only goes one way, going back in time so far that he passes the backward Big Bang. As we know from "The Late Philip J. Fry," the universe is one big cyclical birth, death, and rebirth, thus he winds up right back in the present, even though he never goes forward. 

It's Christmas without an Evil Robot Santa Claus for the first time in centuries in "I Know What You Did Next Xmas," which allows the Planet Express crew to enjoy the holiday with their families. It's a new experience for everyone, and so Fry joins his descendent Professor Farnsworth — and Farnsworth's child clone Cubert — in his cabin in the Bronx. There they have a snowball fight where Fry and Cubert are facing off against Farnsworth and a Yeti — a race of beasts we've seen before.

Yetis showed up first in "Bender's Big Score" when the crew of Planet Express travels to Neptune. Yeti makes a return in the 2011 episode "The Tip of the Zoidberg," which reveals the secret origin of Professor Farnsworth and Dr. Zoidberg's friendship. As it turns out, they were both part of a special mission for Mom's bioweapons division, sent to Neptune's moon Triton to kill and retrieve the body of a Tritonian Yeti. During the mission, Farnsworth contracts hypermalaria, a disease that lays dormant for years before turning fatal. Later, though, it's discovered that it's not hypermalaria at all, but Yetism, turning Farnsworth into a monster himself. How or why Farnsworth is now friends with a Tritonian Yeti is anyone's guess.

In an earlier episode this season, Bender trotted out one of his favorite catchphrases, screaming "We're doomed!" But he's not done recycling his old favorites, and in "I Know What You Did Next Xmas" he brings out the big guns. After Farnsworth returns from his trip back in time, Bender and Zoidberg decide to use it to go back in time and kidnap Robot Santa to ruin Xmas. After they succeed — tying up the holiday bot in Christmas lights and locking him in the meat freezer –  the pair celebrates, dancing while chanting "Do the Bender."

It's a dance and catchphrase fans of "Futurama" know well, seen in a number of episodes in the show's run. Bender famously did the Bender on the disco dance floor, and when one fellow club-goer didn't want to join in, he got in his face and demanded he do it. And Bender does it twice in "I Know What You Did Next Xmas," dancing with Zoidberg a second time at the end when they realize they've actually saved everyone from Evil Robot Santa's rampage. It's not the only jig he's known for, but maybe he'll do the "Bender is Great" dance in a future episode.

"Futurama" isn't just solid gold comedy. Many episodes are genuinely moving emotional stories, and when it comes to those poignant installments, none are more memorable than "Jurassic Bark," an episode so infamously upsetting to fans that many openly talk about how they skip it on rewatches of the show. At the center of the episode is the story of Seymour, Fry's dog in the 20th century, who is left all alone when he disappears. Sad and forlorn, Seymour waits hopelessly on the street for a friend who will never come, eventually dying on the sidewalk.

In the end, Seymour is discovered a thousand years later having become fossilized. That fossilized version of Fry's beloved canine pal makes a reappearance in "I Know What You Did Next Xmas," in the final musical number from Kwanzaa Bot. As a parody of the "12 Days of Christmas" carol, the song features the inclusion of "Fry's dead Dog" just before "two turtle-duckens." Intended as a humorous callback, the line may just leave some fans in tears.